Home, Sick
by Faye Dartmouth
Summary: Learn next time, how to be homesick appropriately.


Title: Home, Sick (And Other Ways to Say _I Love You_)

Disclaimer: I do not own Parks and Recreation.

A/N: I don't know why my muse is doing this to me, but this does fit my homesick prompt for **hc_bingo**. My card is here. No beta, so I apologize now for mistakes. This is set when Andy is working in England. Warnings for some sexual content.

Summary: Learn next time, how to be homesick appropriately.

-o-

The first time Andy surprises her by flying home from England, he doesn't talk about being homesick or missing her. No, they mostly just have lots of sex and make out the entire weekend, stopping only for gummy worms and leftover pizza. So the idea that Andy is homesick is sort of implied, not that either of them want to be bothered with that.

April, as usual, doesn't want to be bothered with anything.

Which makes the fact that she has to say goodbye to Andy in a few hours especially bothersome.

"Ugh," April says, lying on her back as she stares at the ceiling. Andy is sprawled next to her in the bed, still naked and chewing on a pizza crust, oblivious to the crumbs spilling on his chest. "I don't want you to go."

"Okay," Andy says, stuffing the rest of it into his mouth. "I won't go."

She sighs. "You have to go," she mutters. "It's your job."

He shrugs, flopping over to look her in the eyes. "I've lost out on a lot of things," he says. "Might as well see what quitting is like."

She makes a face, swatting at his head. "You're not supposed to give up so easily!"

"Why not?" he asks, far too earnestly.

"Because!" she says. "I want to win an argument, not have you give in."

"But if the outcome is the same…"

She shoves him away, rolling petulantly onto her side. "That's it, you're going back to London."

"No!" he protests. "Why?"

"Because you let me win," she says diffidently. "This is your punishment."

"But that's not fair!"

She rolls a stiff shoulder. "Learn next time," she says. "How to be homesick appropriately."

"But I miss lots of things!" Andy protests. "Like TV I can understand and a house that I can walk around naked in. And I even miss the way our car has all the buttons in the right place, and the way everyone talks normal at City Hall."

She shakes her head, unmoved. "Nope, you've still got it all wrong," she declares. "You'll have to go back and stay in London until you get it right."

"Man," he says, flopping onto his back again. "This sort of sucks."

"Yes," April agrees stoically. "It does."

He's quiet for a moment, and she can tell he's looking at her but she refuses to look back. "Is my punishment so severe that we can't have sex one more time?"

She eyes him coldly over her shoulder with trained, ruthless calculation.

He offers her his best puppy dog look.

It's even better than Champion's, damn it.

"Ugh, fine," she says. "One more time. And I'm going to hold out until you're screaming my name and leave claw marks on your back."

"Awesome!" he says, turning toward her again. "Something to remember home by!"

April lets him scoop her up, his breath hot against her skin, and she just rolls her eyes.

-o-

Andy gets on the plane with no small amount of fanfare. It's only because of April that he finds the right gate or remembers his luggage or has his ticket at all. In the terminal, he tips her head back and kisses her good and proper, tongue and all.

"I'm going to miss you," he says.

It's too sincere, and this is too intimate. "I'm not going to miss you," she replies as seriously as she can. "In fact, I may file for divorce and put all your stuff on the lawn for people to take for free. Whatever's left, I'll just burn."

He smiles, pulling her close for another kiss. "That just makes me miss you more."

She pushes him away. "Go on," she says. "Before you miss your flight."

She makes sure that the last thing he sees is her, rolling her eyes.

-o-

They Skype every day, and Andy texts her, like, all the time. They're in constant contact, so it's not like she's missing much. She tells him about Leslie's latest projects and Tom's worst schemes. He texts her unintelligible nonsense before explaining that he's speaking British.

When she's in bed, she writes to him about all the things she wants to do to him the instant he gets back.

He replies from the bathroom, where he has to stay for another five minutes.

When they Skype, he never wants to get off, and he'd talk all through the night, all through work, all through everything.

"I miss you so much," he tells her. "I think I'm homesick."

She shakes her head. "What did I tell you?"

"To make sure to look left when crossing the street?"

"Right, and no," she says. "The other thing."

"About stealing one of those hats those guards wear?"

"Andy!" she says. "About being homesick appropriately."

"Oh," he says. "Yeah, I don't even know what that means."

"It means you have to _be _sick," she says. "You need to miss me so bad that your stomach hurts, that your lungs are going to explode. I want you to miss me so much that you puke."

He blinks a few times. "I can hurl right now, if that's what you want," he says.

April tries not to laugh and succeeds only in rolling her eyes.

-o-

He shows up on the front porch, looking bedraggled and windswept.

"Andy!" she says, almost dropping her keys. She's on her way to work, and she almost walked right by where he's curled up near the overgrown bushes. "What are you doing here?"

He startles, sitting up. Groaning, he rubs his head. "I was homesick."

"So you thought you'd come all the way back to sleep on the lawn?" she asks.

"Well, I didn't want to wake you up," he says, getting to his feet and scratching his hair a little more thoroughly. It only makes him look even more unkempt than usual.

"So you thought you'd come all the way back to sleep on the lawn," she concludes.

"Honestly, I was just really tired," he says.

She sighs, looking around uncertainly. "Andy, it's not even the weekend," she says. "Your job-"

"I don't care," he says, resolute. "I missed you."

"But you have a _job,_" she says again, as though somehow now that's a self evident truth because in the last two years they've managed to grow up against the odds.

"I don't care about a job," he says. "I missed you, babe. I missed you so much."

It's romantic, and it's stupid, and April stares at him, at a loss. He's the stupidest and the smartest, and she hates him so much that she can't stop loving him at all.

"Plus, my boss is off for the week," he says. "He offered to let me come hunt pheasant or something, but if I get to pick between killing dumb birds and seeing you, I'm going to pick you, every time." He pauses, considering it. "Almost every time. There might be like one time, out of a hundred, where I'd pick the birds, but the other 99, it's you. It's always you."

April shakes her head. "Come on, then," she mutters and rolls her eyes as he follow her to the car.

-o-

Andy spends the day with her, sitting at his desk and throwing things at her when no one is looking. Somehow, Leslie finds work for him to do, which Andy completes in the same haphazard fashion he completes everything. He tells stories about life in England, some of which make sense, and April can tell it's a once in a lifetime experience for her husband - one that he cares very little about.

Because he's just as happy, here with her. Their lives are simple and small, and no one in their right mind could actually miss it.

But Andy does.

He's such an idiot.

He doesn't even say anything, and she rolls her eyes.

-o-

The next day, Andy sleeps.

The day after, he wakes up with a headache. She attributes this to his strange sleeping habits and the fact that he hasn't eaten anything more substantial than a pack of peanut M&Ms since he got back.

The next day, however, he's pale and sweaty. She tries to wake him up before work but he moans, and she can feel the heat radiating off him. Running a palm over his forehead, she swears. "What the hell?"

His eyes flutter open. "See," he croaks in a way that manages to be disgusting and charming all at once. "I told you, I was homesick. I'm home, sick. Get it?"

She rolls her eyes.

-o-

She leaves him with a TV remote, a gallon of orange juice and a box of cereal before she goes to work.

When she gets home, she expects him to be watching movies naked with cereal crumbs spread all over the couch.

Instead, he's passed out where she left him, the fever burning through him. He's hot and he hasn't eaten or drunk enough.

"Ugh," she says, picking up the phone to call Ann. "You really are an idiot."

She chews her lip while she waits for Ann to answer.

It's all she can do to roll her eyes.

-o-

Ann comes over and diagnoses Andy with the flu. Together, they get him some fluids, and Ann assures her that he's just really tired. She says they could go to the hospital, just to be safe, but Andy's pretty resilient.

He's going to be fine.

Still, April sits with him through the night, watching him while he sleeps.

It's not like she has anything better to do.

When he wakes up in the morning, she's tired and worn. He squints at her. "April," he says. "You look horrible."

She just rolls her eyes.

-o-

He gets better as quickly as he got sick. By the time the weekend comes to an end, he's fully on the mend, and she throws together his luggage and makes sure he has his plane ticket.

"But I don't want to go," he whines.

"We've talked about this," she says. "It's your job."

"But I miss you."

"And I miss you or whatever," she says. "But that doesn't change the fact that we both have responsibilities."

He makes a face and whimpers. "But I miss you so much," he says. "Haven't I proved it yet? That I'm homesick?"

She sighs, as if it puts her out. "Yes, fine," she says. "You're appropriately homesick, okay? You have nothing to prove to me."

He brightens at that. "Actually, I think I do."

She glares at him. "And what's that?"

"That being homesick isn't about the house or the TV or the car or City Hall," he says. "I don't think I really miss anything of those things that much."

She regards him skeptically.

He puts his arms around her. "I just miss you," he says, kissing her. "And I'll be homesick for you every second of every day that we're apart, whether it's across the ocean, across town or just across the room."

"Fine," she says with supreme disinterest. "Maybe I'm just a little homesick, too."

He whoops, lifting her up and kissing her hard and long.

When he puts her down, he looks at her. "I love you," he says, like it's the only truth that matters to him in the entire universe.

April doesn't do intimacy like that. She's not one for emotion.

She just rolls her eyes.

Because she trusts Andy knows what she means.


End file.
